Veteran Turkey Farmers... question for you

[princessferf]

I have raised typical commercial turkeys for a number of years.  Buy the chicks, raise them until butcher size, off to freezer camp, rinse and repeat each year.

This year, I wanted to try something different.  Did a bunch of research, and purchased Narragansett chicks since they seemed to have the traits that would do well here in Wisconsin.  Of the group of 8, only 3 were hens.  Of the 5 toms, we butchered 3 and kept 2 for breeding.  As recognized by the American Poultry Association, they can breed naturally.  About a month or so ago our toms have been doing just that.  

My goal is to breed our own and see how it all goes.  Yesterday we got our first 3 eggs from our hens.  I was shocked because according to my research turkey hens don't usually lay eggs until February.  Now, considering these hens are less than a year old, maybe they just reached maturity finally.  /shrug


My questions (that I'm having a hard time finding answers for):

1. Will turkeys lay for just a short time during the winter months?  Or do they lay all year round, just infrequently?

2. Have you incubated any of your turkey eggs before?  Have you had much success?

3. Considering this breed takes longer to get to market weight and even still will not be like the big broad breasted whites, would you incubate the eggs or hope a hen goes broody?  (I don't typically like to rely on hens to provide chicks)


We still raise broad breasted whites to provide a bigger bird for those who buy from us, but I definitely had interest in the Narragansetts, too.    

[thumper]

I have never raised Narragansett before, but have raised a semi commercial bread for a few years.
1. There like chickens to some extent in egg laying. Lighting and diet can help them lay more often.
2. I have incubated them before, but had a 75% hatch rate in our incubator.
3. I would use an incubator.

We gave up on turkeys as they did not fit into our farm plan.

[redfish2]

1) Most of my turkeys stop laying in the winter but I've had a few lay sporadically throughout the winter.

2) I can't incubate anything but other people have successfully incubated my turkey eggs. They've had 75%-95% hatch rate.

3) I don't know.

I only raise turkeys informally as part of the flock because I like them.

[thumper]

I don't know about posting links that are off site, but if you search "off session turkey egg laying" there are some studies put out by collages.

You will need lighting on a timer. I think 8 to 10 hours will get some egg laying, but some of the studies says 16 hours. But it takes a few weeks for them to reset there clock.

[princessferf]

Thanks for the input all, I appreciate it.